Thursday, February 6, 2014

Team Japan announced - Sasuke ASEAN Open Cup News

Later this month (February 20-23) the long-awaited SASUKE ASEAN Open Cup in Malaysia takes place. As promised from last year's Sasuke 29, Japan was to send an elite team based on the results from Sasuke 29 to represent them in the inaugural ASEAN Open. Sasuke Director Inui tweeted today that TBS finally updated their pages (both main website and Facebook) with the composition of the 5 man team.

The team that will represent Japan at the SASUKE ASEAN OPEN CUP 2014 to be held in Malaysia starting February 20 has been selected. The SASUKE RISING competition aired in June 2013 also functioned as preliminary competition for the OPEN CUP, and some of its best performers were named to the Japan team. “The SASUKE Kid”, university student Yusuke Morimoto, who turned in a truly astounding performance, will be joined by the perennial performer All Star Shingo Yamamoto, former Finalist Kenji “Kong” Takahashi, and New Stars Kazuma Asa and Hitoshi Kanno. The five Japanese contestants will defend Japan’s pride in the team competition to be held February 23.

The SASUKE ASEAN OPEN CUP is a celebration of 40 years of diplomatic relations between Japan and the countries of ASEAN. It will include an individual competition open to entrants from anywhere in the world, and a team competition in which the Japanese team will compete against a team of elite ASEAN athletes. Don’t miss this epic battle featuring some of the world’s toughest SASUKE warriors!

That last spot will always be controversial given the hectic and disputed 2nd stage in Sasuke 29. Organizers though extended the invitations however this is a 4 day event and given travel times back and forth they had to get people who were willing to take a week off of work. That alone was a factor along with the final results of Sasuke 29. Yuuji has already gone on twitter saying he couldn't participate but still supported the event. I'm thinking he couldn't take off of work during that entire week.

Ah okay. I know when I check counter information I see it add or replace the .com with the .(insert country code here) on it. Must be something Google does on their end based on how it's searched? Dunno but I'm definitely USA :)

As for airing that's still up in the air. Originally it was only going to be a blurb in Navi (like most things) but hopefully with enough clamor there will be some bigger distribution.. maybe Youtube or even a small special during the day in Japan.